Rustici Software, the Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative (ADL), and a broad community representing industry, government, and academia are happy to announce that the Tin Can API will be released as version 1.0 on April 26th, 2013.

The announcement marks a major stable release of a specification that synthesizes years of experience drawn from previous standards and enables many platforms to communicate in a common data format to track learning experiences. Work on the Tin Can API began almost 3 years ago.

The Tin Can API is an evolution of SCORM, a previous standard managed by ADL. Tin Can allows experiences of all kinds to be tracked using statements of a simple subject, verb, object form (e.g., “I did this”) that are then stored in a well-specified learning record store (LRS). Records of these learning activities are no longer confined to a single learning management system (LMS). Reporting systems can be granted access to all of the statements and can report against any combination of actors, verbs, and objects that they choose.

“We spent the past decade surrounded by e-learning geeks,” said Rustici Software President Mike Rustici. “We think we’ll spend the next decade surrounded by K-12, teachers, hackers, universities, government, education technology, MOOCs, games, and an array of real-world use cases we can’t even imagine yet. These are especially exciting times for anyone who ever heard the acronyms SCORM or AICC.”

In conjunction with the release of the open Tin Can standard, all of Rustici Software’s products fully support the 1.0 specification, as well as offering backward compatibility with the beta versions of the API. Engine, Rustici’s flagship product, even allows real-time conversion of SCORM to Tin Can.

Tools that support the 1.0 specification today:

1. Organizational LRS2. SCORM Engine- the best way for today’s LMSs to add Tin Can support
3. SCORM Cloud- a tool for delivering SCORM and AICC content in many contexts
4. SCORM Driver- the best way to make courses SCORM or Tin Can conformant
5. Watershed- a personal LRS
6. Open Source Software available on GitHub: TinCanJS and TinCanJava

New in Tin Can API version 1.0:

1. Attachments - a way to add digital artifacts to statements as evidence of an experience
2. Statement signing - a way to assert a statement is true by a known entity (think secure certificates for HTTPS)

A launch party is also planned. Come celebrate this milestone with the community on Twitter, Wednesday, 5/1 at 2:30 EST. Just follow the #tincanapi hashtag, and join the party.